THE ONCE PROLIFIC@UCI_Overlord has been silent since May 8. When Brown didn’t respond to Cohen’s initial e-mail and certified mail correspondence about dissolving their partnership, she used a legal representative in Spain to physically serve him papers in the case.

The deadline to respond was Wednesday, June 5. The day before, a lawyer named Andrea Goldman contacted Donnelly on Brown’s behalf to discuss Cohen’s filing. On June 10, Goldman formally responded for Brown with a counterclaim, alleging defamation by Cohen and claiming damages of $2 million. He has asked for a trial—which seems likely to be acrimonious, lengthy, and costly.

His counterclaim is a compendium of complaints about defamation, threats, and claims that the business dispute arose from disagreement over how to use the remaining Kimmage funds. Brown says Cohen wanted to pursue a legal offensive against the UCI, while he wanted to hold the money for Kimmage’s defense or return it to donors. (Cohen disputes this.) But none of that addresses what actually happened to the money.

Very little of what Brown said—to me or anyone else I spoke with—is verifiably true, which makes it difficult to figure out where the money is now. The central facts that everyone I spoke with, including Brown, agree on are that Brown had sole financial control of the Cyclismas PayPal account that collected the Kimmage donations, that he willingly assumed responsibility for it, and that the money—minus the $23,000 that did go to Kimmage—is no longer in that account.

Additionally, all parties agree that Brown handled finances for Cyclismas and collected at least $40,000 in revenue. Although Smith sold ads, Brown controlled and signed all the contracts. (In addition to the Overlord, Finkleman, and Frank Mercer, Brown created a fourth alter ego, Bill Thacker, who did ad sales.) None of that money was ever deposited in the Cyclismas PayPal account, the only account known by both Cyclismas partners to be associated with the site. All told, in just four months, more than $100,000 passed through Brown’s care and is now unaccounted for.

@monki71 The Kimmage Fund was transferred to another account to separate from Cyclismas activities. And No.

So what happened? Was Brown a dreamer—a struggling Canadian café owner who by wit and luck managed to become a personality in the world of cycling and saw the Overlord’s popularity as a path to a different life?

“I think things can shift quickly in his world,” Pickens says. “I honestly think what happened was revenue wasn’t as much or as timely as he expected, so he was dipping into the Kimmage fund.”

“He was living a lifestyle he couldn’t afford,” continues Pickens, adding that at one point Brown mused to him about finding a way to “make the Kimmage fund available to us.”

Smith agrees, recalling increasing pressure from Brown to close deals. He thinks Brown was living off the Cyclismas revenue, hoping to repay it later. But the money never came, and the site’s financial issues forced the problem into the open.

Or was it something more deliberate? Kimmage says when he looks at Brown’s past problems—unpaid salaries at two of his last places of business; the five-figure tax bill assessed against Brown’s cafe just months before the decision to move to Spain; the pattern of secretive and total control over Cyclismas’s business operations; and Cohen's tax liability for some $96,000 in income—and tries to reconcile all that with the charitable interpretation that Brown was a well-intentioned dreamer, it doesn’t square. “You think, well fuck me; that’s far too generous,” he says.

Despite their travails, the Cyclismas trio and Kimmage remain undaunted. Pickens returned briefly to Canada, where his massage business is still active, but wants to stay in Girona. He and Cohen and Smith believe they can make Cyclismas into a going concern, and they’re trying to make good on the projects Brown committed to, even though funds to see them through are in short supply.

Kimmage is pissed that he was duped. “He was telling me things I wanted to hear, and I should’ve been more careful,” he says. “That’s the bit that’s tough for me to accept.” He worries that the experience will dampen enthusiasm for other deserving causes in the future. And he admits his ability to trust is wounded, although he has glowing words for Cohen. One thing he likely won’t have to worry about is legal fees. Jaimie Fuller, the CEO of compression apparel company Skins and noted UCI critic, announced in May that he would finance Kimmage’s legal defense should the UCI revive its suit.

After our initial conversation in early May, I contacted Brown several times via e-mail and phone with follow-up questions and interview requests, to no response. Finally, on Monday, June 3, I e-mailed again. He replied, “This is about more than just the Kimmage Fund. In fact, I have been harassed, defamed, bullied, and my house and car has been vandalized. Police reports have been filed. And to the press it makes no difference.”

He declined to offer more details of the harassment and threats when asked, but said he would be able to talk “early next week.”

A week later, on June 10, I called his Spanish cell phone. The number rang about 10 times, then transferred to a “cannot be connected” message. So I e-mailed, for the sixth time since our conversation, again requesting an appointment to talk. “This is a sensitive time with the legal proceedings,” he wrote back the next day. “There is a filing coming very soon, and I’ll be able to speak to you once this has been completed.” He added that he could speak “when my lawyer indicates I can do so.”

I reminded him that he’d previously said he could talk early that week, adding that I had follow-up questions dealing with specific issues, such as the $40,000 in unaccounted-for Cyclismas revenue and unpaid employees at previous businesses.

There's always two sides to every story. I choose to have mine play out the proper way, as this is a legal matter.

“Thanks for your e-mail outlining the areas where you wish to have specific answers,” he replied, attaching a copy of his counterclaim, filed June 10, the previous day. “Please let me know in writing any additional questions you may have after your review of the attached documentation. I look forward to any additional questions.”

Finally, it seemed, there was an opening. I e-mailed back a lengthy list of questions, with one at the top. If you answer just one question, I wrote, answer this one, straight and clear: “Can you produce proof that the [Kimmage] funds are intact, in an account, and why have you not done so to date?”

The rationale he’d put forth—that disclosing the funds’ location would potentially harm his legal case—didn’t make sense to me. If the funds were intact, in any account anywhere, showing proof of that would go a long way to reassuring donors that their money wasn’t gone, and I couldn’t see how it would hurt his legal case.

Brown’s legal issues seem to be mounting. Cohen says that if she’s unable to recover the Cyclismas money via her civil suit, she is considering pressing criminal charges. And a donor named Bill Hue, a judge in Wisconsin, is exploring a possible class-action suit and has asked to separate the Kimmage money from the business dispute by depositing it with a trustee. If Brown has the money, now would seem like a good time to show it.